First the Good News

In 2020 and 2021 the Ministry of culture allocated extra funding for acquisitions to Norwegian art museums. For Kode this has meant a quadrupling of our procurement budget, and for the first time given us an opportunity to effectuate extensive acquisitions on the contemporary art scene, primarily from Bergen’s exhibiting venues and from artists with associations to Western Norway.

Kode is Norway’s second largest art museum, and has a magnificent collection that covers several centuries of art history. Our aim is to document the best of our contemporary art for posterity.

Each year the collection is augmented through acquisitions, donations and long-term loans. These additions increase our ability to convey essential stories related to art history. The quality and representative characteristics are some of the criteria that determine what works are chosen.

In recent years Kode has undertaken a critical investigation into what is lacking or inequitably represented in our collections. A major number of the new acquisitions are thus works by women artists. We have also finally included several contemporary works by Sami artists in our collection.

In the exhibition, the public will find a broad range of diverse artistic genres, techniques and perspectives, from the 19th century to the present. Come in to view a selection of what we have chosen to preserve for posterity, and why.

Artists featured:

Azar Alsharif, Marsil Andjelov Al-Mahamid, Eilif Amundsen, Siri Aurdal, Ingrid Berven, Heidi Bjørgan, Esther Marie Bjørneboe, Anne-Sophie Blytt, Jeannette Christensen, Anne Marthe Dyvi, Ida Ekblad, Johan Fredrik Eckersberg, Marius Engh, Lissette Escobar, Håkon Anton Fagerås, Matias Faldbakken, Thomas Fearnley, Kristine Fornes, Brit Fuglevaag, Ellen Grieg, Trine Hovden, Line Hvoslef, Mattias Härenstam, Elisabeth Haarr, Toril Johannessen, Martine Linge, Linda Janssjon Lothe, Lotte Konow Lund, Cato Løland, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Marianne Moe, Linda Morell, Bjørn Mortensen, Joar Nango, Brit Bøhme, Magnhild Øen Nordahl, Torill Nøst, Arvid Pettersen, Svein Rønning, Franz Wilhelm Schiertz, Astrid Sleire, Carl Frithjof Smith, Jesús Rafael Soto, Elise Storsveen, Bente Sætrang, Henrik Sørensen, Gunnar Thorsen, Gunnar Torvund, Bjørn-Sigurd Tufta, Eilif Peterssen, Hilde Vemren, Ida Christel Siebke, Erik Werenskiold, Beth Wyller, Takeshi Yasuda, Maya Økland og Kari Aasen.